A Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, who fuses technology into his teaching, has earned himself a National Excellence in Teaching Awards Commendation from the Council on Higher Education/Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (CHE/HELTASA).

After bagging a CPUT Institutional Teaching Excellence Award earlier this year, Dr Zayd Waghid, entered the national awards and walked away with a commendation for his contribution to teaching and learning in the country’s higher education.

“The CHE/HELTASA Committee commends you for a portfolio demonstrating a rich and diverse teaching approach and a clearly articulated philosophy,” reads a letter from the Awards Committee. “We invite you to join us at the HELTASA Conference on 27-29 November 2019 in Grahamstown.”

Waghid says the commendation is a validation of his teaching excellence at national level and that his achievement shows that CPUT is serious about teaching.

“My teaching excellence stems from developing myself academically and having strong relations with my students,” says the former teacher at South Peninsula High.

Having grown up in a family of academics, he asserts his ambition to become a professor one day. His father Yusef is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Education at Stellenbosch University, while his brother, Dr Faiq Waghid, is an academic at CPUT’s Centre for Innovative Educational Technology.

Despite the commendation, Waghid says he feels the need to grow himself academically as well as further strengthen his student relations and collaborations with international universities.

He observed that when teaching their learners, his students’ teaching methods are similar to his as they also make use of technology in their classes.

Waghid, who joined CPUT four years ago, developed a teaching philosophy and innovative pedagogies which included the use of gamification, film and online group blogs.

His philosophy helps disadvantaged students who enter CPUT to transition into higher education through the use of technology.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Renowned author and researcher, Prof Rajendra Chetty has been appointed as the President of the English Academy of Southern Africa.

The Research Coordinator for the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Chetty is the 17th president of the academy.

Chetty, who has also been appointed at the Chairperson of the Provincial Parliament Language Committee, says it’s an honour to head up the academy, which plays a key role in promoting the effective use of English in Southern Africa.

“The Academy was founded to engage with those in power and with the general public about the role and significance of English. It has done so vigorously, with dignity and in a positive spirit,” says Chetty.

The academy has made regular submissions to government on language issues, ran seasonal schools for teachers, hosted a number of valuable conferences and lectures and published first-rate journals.

With education high on the academy’s agenda, they are now concentrating their efforts on literacy.

“The crisis of decreasing literacy levels in the public schools needs to be addressed more seriously. For this to happen, creative solutions (and massive expenditure) would have to be applied to the teaching of English, particularly in disadvantaged and rural schools,” says Chetty.

“If well managed, mastery of English in disadvantaged settings may be an invaluable tool of exchange between those living on the margins of society and those who are part of the global village.”

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

The array of talent displayed by students from the Faculty of Education during its Benefit Concert had the 400-strong crowd entertained throughout the event.

The concert, which was a first of its kind, aimed at raising funds for the faculty’s Student Emergency Fund. The funds are used to assist students who are battling to cover their daily living cost, such as traveling fares to university.

The audience in Mowbray Campus’ Main Hall were awed by the mesmerizing performances of music, dance, poetry, comedy and drama. Among the faculty‘s staff members who were in the audience was the faculty’s dean, Prof Thobeka Mda who also expressed her support for the concert.

The CPUT Drama group performed a play called, A Deadly Affair, which had a humorous take on a married couple who deals with issues of infidelity and murder.

Student choirs from Mowbray and Bellville campuses as well as a student pianist and a group of rappers rendered musical items.

Students also took the stage to compete in the Mr and Miss Teacher contest.

The event was produced by the faculty’s Dr Clive Kronenberg and sponsored by Henry Oliver, Mustura Arend, JUTA and Sunset Bay Trading.

 By Kwanele Butana

Written by CPUT News
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The Faculty of Education is hosting a benefit concert in a bid to raise funds for their Student Emergency Fund.

The fund was established several years ago and relies on charity donations from lecturers. The funds are used to assist students who are battling to cover their daily living cost, such as travelling fares to university

Lecturer Jeremy Koeberg says the current economic climate saw the need for the fund to increase.

To raise the much-needed funds, the faculty will host a Benefit Concert in its Main Hall on the Mowbray Campus on Friday, 19 October at 10h00. The concert will showcase a wide range of cultural items by the faculty’s students and staff, including music, dance, poetry and drama.   

A highlight of the day will be the Mr and Miss Teacher Competition where contestants will be quizzed on the qualities of a good teacher.

Mthobeli Mankayi, from the faculty’s local Student Representative Council Representative, says students support this initiative.

“Two students were recently left homeless when a blaze razed their shacks to the ground, I was glad when the fund was used to alleviate their plight,” says Mthobeli.

Admission tickets cost R10 each for students and R20 for staff members. Members of the public are also welcome.

Tickets can be purchased from Kulsum (Mowbray Campus) on 021 680 1506 or Nandipha (Bellville Campus) on 021 959 6245.      

By Kwanele Butana

Written by CPUT News
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The Mowbray Campus is the hub of teaching activities at CPUT and houses the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences.

The faculty produces the largest number of teaching graduates in the Western Cape every year.

The campus is also home to the Department of Sports Management and the state-of-the-art Human Performance Laboratory. The lab is used for research purposes as well as to rehabilitate people with spinal cord injuries.

Getting to and from the campus could never have been an easier as it is situated a stone’s throw away from the railway and bus stations as well a taxi rank.

ROLEPLAY: Education students display their respective cultures during a Culture Day at the Mowbray Campus

The Mowbray campus recently benefitted from a major multi-million Rand revamp which saw the construction of new state-of-the-art lecture theatres, fully equipped laboratories as well as a research unit, which are all accessible to students with mobility disabilities.

The first floor of Viljoenhof Residence has a computer centre to support students with their learning.

Students also have access to a wide range of sport facilities and extra-curricular activities.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Two academics have completed the Teaching Advancement at Universities (TAU) Programme and have started sharing their newly-acquired skills with their colleagues to enhance teaching excellence at CPUT.

Dr Nomakhaya Mashiyi, Language Coordinator in the Faculty of Education, and Dr Bernadette Millar, a senior lecturer in the Clothing and Textile Department, are now certified TAU Fellows.

The programme is funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training and empowers academics countrywide to be change agents at their universities.

Hosted by the University of Johannesburg, the inaugural two-year long programme consists of contact sessions and online support from supervisors.

The programme’s 53 participants were each required to do an individual’s research project aimed at promoting the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching as a marriage of learning and teaching with research.

“My research study evaluated academic and non-academic support programmes at CPUT’s Education Faculty,” says Mashiyi.

She added that the programme was innovative and empowering.

“We discussed teaching and learning at our universities and our envisaged role in promoting effective teaching and learning.”

She is of the view that each institution should create spaces for the TAU fellows to engage with fellow lecturers on matters on matters relating to teaching and learning.

Millar says the TAU Fellowship is very important for the country’s universities because it foregrounds learning and teaching in Higher Education.

“It was very stimulating to connect with academics from other universities and see the challenges we each face before deciding on how to move forward,” she says.

“I feel very honoured to have been part of the fellowship as I learnt a great deal and have since passed the knowledge to my colleagues and will also use it when supervising postgrad students.”

Written by Kwanele Butana
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One of CPUT’s top researchers, Prof Lungi Sosibo is involved in ground breaking work in the areas of maths, science and ICT.

An award winning researcher, Sosibo recently completed a three-year NRF Maths and Science project in the Vhembe District of Limpopo in which she collaborated with experts from CPUT, UNISA and the University of Venda.

Next on her research agenda are collaborations that go beyond the borders of the country.

Sosibo and her CPUT Team are about to embark on a Research and Innovation Niche Area project on Maths, Science and ICT which is funded by CPUT.

“At the same time, Dr Sadhana Manik (UKZN) and I are coordinating a project in which international scholars have been invited to contribute book chapters on ‘Student Access, Support and Success in Higher Education’,” she adds.

“This project involves researchers from the SADC region as well as outside it.”

Sosibo also coaches and co-authors journal articles with postgraduate students at CPUT and UKZN, as well as with some novice researchers in the Faculty of Education at CPUT.

“As Acting HOD: Research, I am steering research activities in the faculty, which I juggle with my own research.”

Last year, the university’s Research Directorate awarded her with a Bronze Research Award to add to her colourful career as a researcher.

“The award was a culmination of the journey that began in December 2010 when my first article was published in an accredited journal.”

She says that her promotion to Associate Prof in 2014 was an achievement she does not take lightly.

“As we all know, the number of Black female professors is the lowest nationally and internationally, when compared to males and White females.”

Written by Kwanele Butana
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A Foundation Phase lecturer in the Faculty of Education and the co-ordinator of the Grade R diploma course has been involved in writing a book on Grade R together with other academics from South African institutions.

Dr Naseema Shaik, who received her PHD in April of 2014, specializes in teaching Grade R and literacy in the Foundation Phase.

Shaik has contributed three chapters to the book, ‘Teaching Grade R’, which is published by Juta.

“I wrote one chapter on my own and its title is ‘Who is the Grade R teacher?’ In addition to this I wrote two chapters with other colleagues from other Higher Education institutions in South Africa,” she says.

“The title of the one chapter is ‘Perspectives on early childhood education’ and the other chapter is titled ‘Teaching and learning’.”

The book, which is available at local bookstores at just over R300 per copy, has a total of 14 chapters.

Eleven academics from seven institutions were involved in contributing towards ‘Teaching Grade R’.

This book advocates teaching and learning through play in Grade R and also highlights teaching and learning through participatory, child-centered approaches.  

It is used by Grade R Teaching Diploma students, B ED: Foundation Phase students as well as Grade R teachers.

CPUT is the first and only university in the Western Cape that offers the Grade R Teaching Diploma when it introduced the course last year.

The diploma is offered on a part-time basis over four years.

Written by Kwanele Butana

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Second-year Education student Corne Conradie scooped the prize for coming up with a winning name for the character featured on the Help2Read project’s logo.

Corne, who is also a volunteer for the project, won a R250 book voucher for the innovative name, Nolwazi (Nguni for mother of knowledge).

Help2Read is a non-profit organisation on a mission to erase illiteracy in South Africa.

Since 2015, they have partnered with the Faculty of Education on the Wellington Campus where they have trained pre-service teachers, who are English Home language subject specialists, as volunteers for Help2Read.

The students work at a children’s home and in schools in the Wellington area, where they enhance the reading skills of the pupils in their care.

Every other day the students commit an hour to reading with a specific child for the whole year.

“In May of 2017, Help2Read launched its new look,” says the faculty’s Dr Hanlie Dippenaar, “and part of this campaign was to run a competition to find the name of the little reader in their logo”.

“Congratulations to Corne for her innovative and creative contribution. We on the Wellington campus, are proud to be part of the Help2Read initiative and to be part of the future of reading in South Africa.”

Initially, Corne came up with six well-researched names, but together with her siblings she decided on Nolwazi.

She says volunteering in the project plays an integral part towards her holistic development as a CPUT student.

Melody Volmink, Literacy Tutor and Relationship Co-ordinator at Help2Read congratulated Corne and thanked her colleague, Leani van Zyl, for championing the partnership with CPUT by providing intensive training and support to the students.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Dr Lungile Sosibo, from the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, has been awarded a National Research Foundation (NRF) grant to conduct an inter-varsity research project.

Sosibo will collaborate with researchers from CPUT, University of South Africa and the University of Venda to run training programs in Maths, Science, languages and ICT for senior phase teachers in South African schools.

Language experts from these universities will team up with Maths, Science and ICT experts to develop terminology glossaries in isiXhosa, isiZulu and tshiVenda for senior phase teachers.

“The project will focus on high schools in the Vhembe District of Limpopo,” says Sosibo who is the study’s principal investigator.

“We chose this district due to its rural nature as we assumed that its teachers may be incapacitated and lack teaching resources.”

The three-year-long project includes funding for a Masters or Doctoral student who will commence studies next year.

Sosibo says the project will yield many research outputs such as articles in accredited journals.

“The Department of Basic Education has developed glossaries for the intermediate phase, so by developing the same for the senior phase we are taking up from where it left off.”

Under the title, “Rethinking the teaching of Mathematics and Sciences in South African schools”, the project involves a team of 11 researchers, five of which come from CPUT.

The NRF has funded the project to the tune of almost R1million.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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A new book exploring issues of quality education in South Africa was recently launched at CPUT’s Mowbray Campus.

The book, “The search for quality education in post-apartheid South Africa: Interventions to improve learning and teaching,” was authored by academics, teachers and other role players in the education sector.

The book was co-edited by CPUT’s Prof Yusuf Sayed, the Research Chair in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Prof Anil Kanjee from Tshwane University of Technology and Prof Mokubung Nkomo from the University of Pretoria.

Sayed says the book, which is 448 pages long, is an attempt to map issues of quality.

“At one level the book is a catalogue of several attempts, successful and partially successful, to improve quality.”

CPUT’s Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Prof Thobeka Mda, says the fact that the book had no section on what constitutes quality education itself affirmed its title as an ongoing process.

She says quality education requires trained teachers, adequate learning materials and environment that will foster quality delivery of education.

Other speakers were Nkomo, Kanjee and University of Cape Town’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof Crain Soudien.

The book was published by the Human Sciences Research Council Press.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Dedicated staff members coupled with a distinctive style of training ensures that the CPUT Wellington Campus remains one of the most popular choices for students who want to pursue careers in teaching, agriculture and business.

This picturesque campus is situated in the heart of Wellington, just off the town’s main road and accommodates the Faculties of Applied Sciences, Business and Management Sciences and Education.

The Faculty of Education has the largest presence on the campus, with an enrollment of more than a 1 000 BEd students and is also the only site at CPUT where Afrikaans is used as a medium of training.

The Wellington Campus has excellent sporting facilities that supports the campus's thriving sports culture

The campus is currently expanding, with a new library and student center under construction and will soon boast a state-of-the-art Agri-Hub, which will become the nucleus of agricultural teaching and development in the Cape Winelands region.

The Agri-Hub will house the Agriculture Department and will feature a vineyard, fruit orchards, vegetable fields as well as a livestock husbandry training facility.

The existing wine cellar, which was funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training to the tune of R2 m will also be incorporated into the new development.

This facility will feature modern lecture rooms, conference facilities, laboratories and greenhouses.

View Wellington Campus contact details and maps

Written by Marick Hornsveld

CPUT’s Mowbray Campus is the hub of teaching activities at CPUT and houses the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences.

The faculty produces the largest number of teaching graduates in the Western Cape every year, many of whom are now teaching at schools and Further Education and Training colleges throughout the country.

The campus is also home to the Department of Sports Management and the state-of-the-art Human Performance Laboratory. Having started operating in 2006, the lab is used for research purposes as well as to rehabilitate people with spinal cord injuries.

One of the people who are benefitting from the lab’s rehabilitation programme and therapy is Andrew Merryweather who suffered a severe injury to his spinal cord during a widely reported violent scuffle in 2006.

The Mowbray campus has benefitted from a major multi-million Rand revamp and now boasts new state-of-the-art lecture theatres, fully equipped laboratories and a research unit which are all accessible to students with mobility disabilities.

The first floor of Viljoenhof Residence houses a computer centre and students also have access to a wide range of sport facilities.

Maps and contact details for the Mowbray Campus

Written by Kwanele Butana
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The Faculty of Education recently celebrated the opening of a state-of-the-art Elastic Resistance Training Facility – a project which aims to boost physical education teaching.

The facility is based at the Mowbray campus and speakers at the event included Charl du Toit, who won two gold medals at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and Sandro Di Girolamo, President of the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA).

Attendees were also treated to a demonstration on the elastic system.

The gym is the brainchild of the Faculty’s Dr George Joubert.

“One of my PhD recommendations referred to the implementation of physical education systems that could address the specific physical needs of primary school learners but also have the ability to be used in relative small spaces with a maximum amount of learners that can train together, over a short period of time. As a lecturer I am also constantly looking at innovative ideas and concepts that my students can be exposed to, that will have a profound positive impact on their journey as young teaching practitioners,” said Joubert.

The main objectives are to:

• Develop a physical education teacher base that is well trained in the elastic system
• Create a specific teaching method and curricula for the system
• Do extensive research on the value of elastic resistance on children in partnership with IBSA.

Joubert said the gym is funded by a sponsorship agreement with Ultimate Resistance Training (URT) systems.

“Mr Charl du Plessis is an ex provincial rugby player, conditioning guru, and founder of the URT systems. Charl worked with the South African rugby Union and the Lions Rugby Union for several years, but his desire to create fundamental development concepts took over the last few years. CPUT is very honoured and excited to join forces with this revolutionary new way of training through the URT systems.”

Du Toit gave his congratulations to everyone involved in the project.

“This is the foundation for great memories and actually to change lives without realising it. So well done and I’m very excited to see what the impact of this gym, this facility and this family is going to be over the next couple of years,” he said.

Di Girolamo said he was very happy to be at CPUT and emphasised the important role universities played in terms of research on sport.

The main role-players of the initiative are: CPUT’s Department of Education and the Sport Management Department, IBSA, the Forward Foundation, Winelands Para Sport and the South African Sports Association for the Physically Disabled.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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Three academics in the Faculty of Education have been awarded new ratings by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in recognition of their research outputs.

Prof Liesel Hibbert was awarded a C2 rating while Drs Zayd Waghid and Pieter Boer each received a Y2 rating.

“I am deeply honoured and grateful to have successfully received an NRF rating,” said an ecstatic Waghid. “A Y2-rating is a testimony of the fact that one’s research outputs were of high quality and that it has significant impact in my field of educational research, which is social justice education.”

He added that a rating is a strong indication that one is ready to enter the professoriate, which has always been his goal to serve the academe at the highest level in his capacity as a researcher. “I hope to share my knowledge and experiences with colleagues in my faculty in the hope that they will also apply for NRF rating in the near future,” enthused the Senior Lecturer in Senior Phase and Further Education and Training.

Waghid said the rating is a vindication of CPUT’s stance on research as there are not that many rated researchers in the country, particularly in the field of educational inquiry. “The presence of rated scholars enhances CPUT’s research ethos both nationally and internationally,” he contended.

Boer said he is delighted and humbled by this recognition. “I have been doing research on the functional fitness for individuals with Down’s Syndrome for 12 years and it has been an extraordinary journey,” he added.

He said the rating provided direction and purpose into the research that he does and motivation to work harder and become a leading expert in a very specific area of research. “Furthermore, improving the quality of life for a vulnerable group of individuals provides feelings of appreciation and contentment,” intimated Boer.

Hibbert’s interdisciplinary research includes sociology of language and politics, educational linguistics, educational research, psychology, literature and discourse analysis.

According to the NRF website, a C2 rating is awarded when, with the exception of no more than a single reviewer raising some minor concerns, all other reviewers are firmly convinced that the applicant is an established researcher with a sustained recent record of productivity who are recognised by their peers as having produced a body of quality work, the core of which has coherence and attests to ongoing engagement with the field.                                 

Written by Kwanele Butana
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As gateways to knowledge, libraries play an important role in the development of communities.

This fact was recently highlighted when the CPUT Wellington Library, in collaboration with the Faculty of Education and the Wellington Public Library, hosted a community outreach event at the Wellington Skills School. The event formed part of the South African Library Week themed “My library, your library.”

“Our goal is to expose learners to a library and show them what it offers and how it can contribute to their development,” says Manager of the CPUT Wellington Library, Joanne Arendse.

“We want to bring libraries into their hearts and lives.”

As part of the outreach CPUT Education lecturers and students presented a woodwork skills development workshop, which aimed at showing learners the role information can play in the process of constructing an item. CPUT Libraries also presented an information literacy skills development group work session that focused on showing learners how to utilize information resources effectively, while the Wellington Public Library informed learners on the benefits of being a library member.

KNOWLEDGE: CPUT Librarian Naomi Williams coordinated the information literacy skills workshop

Acting principal of the Wellington Skills School, Dorothea Albanie welcomed the CPUT initiative and says such collaborations are important for the development of learners.

The skills school was established at the start of this year and provides learners who experience barriers to learning the opportunity to develop their full potential. The school offers a range of subjects such as woodwork, welding, arts and crafts, agriculture and hospitality.

Albanie says CPUT is the first tertiary institution to reach out to the school and that they look forward to building a strong partnership with the institution.

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

Two CPUT academics were among the presenters at the International Conference on Innovation in Basic – Higher Education.

Zinzi Magoda, a lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, and the Faculty of Education’s Assoc Prof Zayd Waghid, presented their work at the conference, which was held earlier this month in Istanbul, Turkey.

Magoda’s presentation was titled: The effect of using business experiments as a teaching strategy for effective student learning: A case of entrepreneurship students at a University of Technology.

Her areas of expertise in research include social entrepreneurship, social media marketing, consumer behaviour studies, marketing, growth, and development of Small Medium Micro Enterprises and female entrepreneurship.

She is pursuing a DPhil in Business Management and holds a National Research Foundation grant (NRF). Magoda was recently awarded a Black Academics Advancement Programme (BAAP) grant.

She said the conference's focus on innovations in basic and higher education was “a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the most recent advancements and cutting-edge research in these fields as well as to exchange best practices in teaching and learning, leadership and administration, and research collaborations”.

She thanked CPUT and the NRF for the opportunity.

Waghid’s presentation was titled: Exploring South African university educators’ pedagogical practices concerning Global Citizenship Education.

“In response to the current pandemic, I investigate the philosophical underpinnings guiding university educators' pedagogical practices at a South African university. I use a soft versus critical Global Citizenship Education framework as a conceptual lens to investigate the extent to which university educators' pedagogical practices supported by educational technology can be reconsidered in order to achieve some of the goals of critical Global Citizenship Education in cultivating social justice,” said Waghid.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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The Reflective Harmonised Teaching Practice (TP) Online Symposium, which was recently held by the Faculty of Education, enabled all Foundation Phase(FP) and Intermediate Phase (IP) student teachers at CPUT engage in last-minute professional development discussions on the current Reflective Practice Model utilised in the initial teacher education programmes.

Intermediate Phase TP Coordinator, Clive Brown, said the Reflective Practice Model is implemented for ”learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and practice”. Brown added that Teaching Practice is globally acknowledged as a central component of any teacher education programme.

“The culmination of thirty-two weeks of in-service preparedness within the real-life South African classroom over four years amidst a global pandemic has finally come to an end,” he continued. “The final year FP and IP student teachers for the academic year 2022, including their assigned Mentor Teachers, Teaching Practice coordinators, Teaching Practice administrators, departmental staff and executive members all critically reflected on the current Teaching Practice Model utilised in preparing future teachers from the faculty for the world of work.”

To aid in the preparedness of the final year group of student-teachers, guest speakers joined the symposium.

The guest speakers were:

• Ismail Teladia, Deputy Chief Education Specialist: Life Skills (Grades 4-6) and Life Orientation (Grades 7-9)
• Amiena Van Niekerk, Foundation Phase Student-Teacher (Presenting a Shared Reading Lesson)
• Michaela Gallop, Intermediate Phase Student-Teacher (Presenting a Shapes and Angles Mathematics Lesson)
• Ella Mokgalane, Chief Executive Officer (South African Council for Educators)
• Stacey Botha, Intermediate Phase Primary School Teacher and CPUT Master's Degree Candidate
• Henk Wichers, Coding and Robotics Specialist at Mikro Primary School

Literature that focuses on preparing student teachers for the world of work posits that beginning teachers experience a reality shock and often feel disillusioned and stressed during their first years of teaching, observed Brown. “The dedicated symposium was created under the auspices of the advisory board established in 2021 to collaboratively engage with all stakeholders within education to ensure the preparedness of fully competent newly- qualified teachers to take up teaching positions locally and internationally,” he enthused. “The Reflective Harmonised Teaching Practice Online Symposium aligned with the Strategic Plan 2021–2030, which speaks of 'One Smart CPUT' and focuses on two critical dimensions.” The two are Oneness and Smartness.

Dean of the Faculty of Education, Prof. Andile Mji, opened the online symposium by reminding student-teachers that our country has a sad past which resulted in people being placed in 'boxes', because of their skin colour. Mji encouraged each future teacher to embrace diversity, focusing on uplifting each learner in their care. “The teacher's work will flow over into the communities in which the teacher is employed, culminating in a positive transformation within our country,” he added.

Ismail Teladia, who has more than 29 years of teaching experience and also the recipient of a national teaching award, rendered an insightful presentation which spoke to the kind of professional teacher the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) envisages welcoming into its schools. Teladia encouraged student-teachers to "grab as many opportunities to teach" whilst simultaneously building a 'brand' for themselves. “The brand should encompass integrity, impactfulness and adaptability”, he emphasised.

SACE CEO Ella Mokgalane talked about “Professionalism according to the SACE”. Mokgalane discussed the safeguarding and best interest of all learners within schools throughout South Africa. She addressed matters of the Provisional Registration, which final-year student teachers would be confronted with,and stressed the importance of 'not having a criminal record' when undertaking teaching as a career choice. Stacey Botha, Intermediate Phase Primary School Teacher and CPUT Master's Degree Candidate guided student-teachers attending the symposium through the 'daunting job interview process'. Botha commenced her talk with the WCED Online Job Registration Process, which further detailed the physical preparedness for the interview.

She also warned the student-teachers that their social media accounts are used as interrogating tools by prospective employers and encouraged them to be vigilant about the kinds of images and videos posted on public platforms.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Prof Shirley Zinn is an individual who has experienced incredible career highs and gut-wrenching personal lows, but it was these lows that she encouraged graduates to embrace and learn from.

Zinn, a Harvard graduate and accomplished businesswoman, was the guest speaker at the Faculty of Education graduation ceremony on Tuesday evening and shared a snippet of her own life story which included growing up in a gang-riddled neighbourhood and as an adult losing her only son unexpectedly in a car accident.

“Each one of us has faced our own tragedy and heartache but I am here to say that setbacks and disappointments will come,” she says.

“You have the potential to do far more than what you thought you could. Tonight we celebrate the futures you will create, not only for yourself but also for others.”

Zinn knows exactly what she is talking about since she herself spent many years in a classroom teaching, first at Groenvlei High School then later lecturing at UWC.

She grasped an opportunity to do her Masters at Harvard University in the States and despite immense financial challenges continued on to do her Doctorate at the same Ivy League university.

On her return to South Africa she moved her career into Human Resources and went on to work at many multi-national companies, the corporate banking sector and SARS.    

Written by Lauren Kansley
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Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

Two academics in the Faculty of Education have contributed two chapters to a textbook which introduces prospective teachers to children’s literature and details how children can be encouraged to become enthusiastic readers.

Drs Hanlie Dippenaar and Candice Livingston were recently part of a joint collaboration with the University of Pretoria in the writing and publishing of an undergraduate textbook for the teaching of children’s literature.

The textbook, Introducing children’s Literature: a guide to the South African Classroom was published by Van Schaik Publishers. The textbook, which comprises of 11 chapters, has been prescribed for first-year students in the English Department on the Wellington Campus.

“A lot has been published on children’s literature but little has been published on how it is implemented within the South African classroom context. This book deals with where literature fits in within the teaching and learning environment in the classroom’ says Livingston.

“It looks at how caregivers, teachers and parents play a role in the educational development of learners.”

She adds that the book also addresses how teaching should be done in the context of a decolonised curriculum which is demanded by the #FeesMustFall movement.

Livingston’s chapter deals with types of children’s literature, while Dippenaar’s looks at the historical development of the genre in South Africa in English, Afrikaans and IsiXhosa with a particular reference to oral tradition.

The textbook is available at Van Schaik’ bookstores and will soon be available at the CPUT libraries.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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